constant. On Carter, it wasn’t a fashion accessory—it belonged on top of his head.
His eyes snapped alert, and he turned his head her way. Caught staring at him, she darted a glance to the overhead compartment, refusing to look into his eyes.
“What’s that I heard about a nude scene?”
Oh boy. Macy’s heart pumped double time. She’d hoped he hadn’t picked up on that comment from the dozens being leveled at her earlier. “It’s…nothing.”
Carter, apparently done with his little nap, turned his body to face her completely. The full force of his gaze was nothing to sneeze at. “That so? You gonna make me look it up online?”
Macy’s mouth fell open. “You’d do that?”
Carter’s eyes lit with mischief. “So, it is something.”
“Nothing I want to talk about.”
“I’m not a fan of computers, Macy. But I use them when I need to.”
“Trust me. You don’t need to know.”
His lips twisted into a frown and Macy thought about how he’d come to her rescue. How, he’d offered her a place of refuge. She supposed she owed him some sort of explanation.
“Oh, all right. I was doing a movie. It wasn’t a big role or anything, just this little independent film about five women stranded on an island together. I had this scene where…”
Carter leaned forward, his gaze sweeping over her in a way he’d never done before. As if he was just noticing her as a woman. A tremor quaked through her belly, making her extremely queasy.
“Go on,” he said, his brows lifting expectantly.
Sure, mention five females and nudity in the same breath, and suddenly men begin actually listening to women. She took a swallow. “Well, there was this one scene where I was to be bathing naked in this tropical lake and, uh…”
“And?”
“Well, you get the picture, right?”
Carter swept his gaze over her again. This time, with more heat than she’d expected from a jilted man. His hazel eyes darkened. “I’m beginning to.”
She’d wanted those words back the second she’d said them. Goodness, she wasn’t asking him to picture her naked, yet the gleam in his eyes was enough to make her faint.
She pressed on. “Well, I chickened out. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t allow millions of people to see me in my birthday suit. The studio offered a body double, but everyone would still think it was me anyway. So…” She wished she didn’t have to reveal such a humiliating experience to him. “I, uh, refused to do it. I sort of had a tantrum about it.” Lessons learned from her mother. “Finally, they rewrote the scene without the nudity. Needless to say, I made a lot of people unhappy.”
Carter leaned back in his seat and nodded, and that awkward awareness between them was gone. “You stuck to your principles.”
“I should have never agreed to it in the first place.”
“Yeah, well. Hindsight can be a bitch. We do things we’re thinking are right at the time, only to find out later how wrong we were.”
From the regret in his voice, Macy knew he was speaking about his own situation. She lowered her tone and gave him a soft smile. “I’m sorry about what happened yesterday with your—”
“Jocelyn?” He shifted his gaze to look out the window. “Yeah, I didn’t see that coming. I’m not sure what happened there, but I guarantee you I won’t let it happen again. I’ve got my guard up now.”
Macy nibbled on her lower lip. “You know, you can throw me off your property anytime you want. If you regret inviting me to stay at your place and would rather be alone, I’d understand.”
He faced her. “Don’t worry, Macy. Like I said, I’ve got ten thousand acres. You won’t get in my way. And I won’t get in yours. I don’t live with regrets. So don’t you worry your head off about me. Is it a deal?”
Macy smiled, more assured now. “It’s a deal.”
Three
The second Carter planted his boots down on Texas soil, he felt better. He’d been gone only a few days, but he was damn grateful to be back on his own land. Coming home to Wild River never got old.
Jocelyn had bruised him, and he couldn’t quite shake the feeling. He’d never asked a woman to marry him before. He’d never had the inclination. Jocelyn had reeled him in like a sucker, and just when he thought things were going great, she’d tossed him back into the water to fish for someone else.
Macy had been bruised, too. Her circumstances were different, but when he’d spotted her outside the restaurant, he’d seen a look of pain and disbelief in her eyes. He’d felt a kinship with her that, even now, he couldn’t truly define. It was the reason he’d invited her to Wild River.
He glimpsed his fifteen-room house and breathed in the earthy scent of range and cattle before he turned from the car to reach for Macy’s hand. She slid her palm into his and climbed out of her seat, as graceful as a doe, to stand beside him. “You ready for a slice of heaven?”
Those violet eyes of hers swept the Wild River vista and a little sigh escaped her lips. Carter’s chest puffed out some at her thunderstruck look. “Oh, it’s stunning, Carter.”
Carter had worked with an architect to give his home just the right mixture of down-home comfort and modern-day style. The result, much to his satisfaction, turned out to be a wood and stone structure with bay windows and skylights. Stone pilings and wrought-iron fencing surrounded the grounds. Beyond the house lay the outer buildings that made up the ranch itself, with corrals, barns and feed shacks.
“No tall skyscrapers blocking out the sunrise here.” He glanced eastward toward the orange blast of light lifting from the land in midday splendor. “Every room at the back of the house has a big window facing east. Same goes for sunsets for the rooms facing west.”
“And I bet you make sure you see the sun rise every day.”
“I’m up at the crack of dawn.”
Macy’s eyes rolled at his clichéd response. “Just like a regular cowpoke.”
He chuckled. Damn, but it felt good being home. “I’m a businessman, but I’m a rancher first. You gotta love the land and all that goes with it.”
“I’m feeling better already. I think I’m going to like it here,” she said softly, and Carter didn’t doubt it. His land had everything.
A four-legged ball of fur shot out of the barn, wagging its tail around and around like a jet propeller, and raced straight for Macy. Her face lit up. “Oh, isn’t he cute.”
“Say hi to Rocky. He sort of runs the place.”
Carter lowered down at the same time Macy did and their hands touched as they stroked the dog’s blond coat.
